SMARTER STRATEGIES

IBM's Five Innovations That Will Change Cities over Next Five Years

Dennis McCafferty | Date: 12-18-09 | Comments

IBM lists five emerging technologies that will help cities deal with the urbanization of our world and make cities "intelligent."

Experts are predicting that city populations around the globe will skyrocket by 2050. Fortunately, technology can help, as this issue was the topic of IBM's annual "Next 5 in 5" list this year. The 2009 list focuses on five innovations that will change cities�and our lives�over the next five years.

"Big changes are going to be needed over the next five years to help cities deal with the urbanization of our world. The ability to monitor our environment with sensors and apply analytics to the vast data that is collected will enable major changes in the ways that cities operate," said Bill Pulleyblank, vice president of business analytics and optimization at IBM. "Analytics will help us understand the spread of diseases, find leaks in the urban water systems, predict and respond to emergencies before they happen, and enable buildings to provide real-time information to engineers. Quite literally, future cities will become intelligent."

Here are the emerging urban technologies to watch, according to IBM's report:

● Healthy tech. Web 2.0 technologies, collaboration and other tech tools will enable doctors, nurses and other health care providers to provide swifter responses in the case of an outbreak like H1N1. They'll know precisely when, where and how diseases are spreading�even which areas will be affected next. A "health Internet" will emerge�complete with anonymous medical information contained in electronic health records�to securely share data to stop the spread of disease. IBM is now working with organizations worldwide to standardize methods for sharing such health information and analyzing infectious disease outbreaks.

● Smart buildings. Buildings will become a lot like people, "organisms" that can sense incidents like intrusions and respond quickly to protect people and resources inside. And thousands of sensors inside buildings will monitor everything from motion to temperature to humidity to occupancy to lighting, allowing consumers and business owners to monitor their energy consumption in real time and take action to reduce it. These systems will also enable repairs before something breaks, and send emergency units to respond quickly to accidents.

● Running on empty. As in cars and city buses, which will forgo gas tanks and run on new battery technologies that will run for days, or even months, without recharging. IBM scientists and partners are working to design new batteries that will make it possible for electric vehicles to travel hundreds of miles on a single charge, up from 50 to 100 miles currently. Also, smart grids in cities could enable cars to be charged in public places and use renewable energy, such as wind power, so they no longer rely on coal-powered plants. This will lower emissions as well as minimize noise pollution.

● Got water? Today, one in five people lacks access to safe drinking water, and municipalities lose an alarming amount of supply of this�up to 50 percent�through leaky infrastructure. On top of that, human demand for water is expected to increase six times the current levels in the next 50 years. So cities will install smarter water systems to reduce water waste by up to 50 percent, IBM's research forecasts. Cities also will install smart sewer systems that not only prevent run-off pollution in rivers and lakes, but purify water to make it drinkable. Advanced water purification technologies will help cities recycle and reuse water locally, reducing energy used to transport water by up to 20 percent.

● Crisis intervention. Cities will respond to a crisis�even before receiving an emergency phone call. They'll be able to predict emergencies in order to reduce and prevent them. IBM is already helping law enforcement agencies analyze the right information at the right time, so that public servants can take proactive measures to head off crime. For example, it's working with fire officials in New York City to build a state-of-the-art system for collecting and sharing data in real time, to potentially prevent fires while protecting rescuers. It's designing a similar system for levee systems, to protect cities during floods and disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.